Tonight I saw the premiere episode of "24", the new suspense drama on FOX. I've heard the rave reviews for the past two months, and I was hoping they were right.

In the past, critics have praised what I thought was mediocre (Titanic) and slammed what I thought was a very good movie, The Phantom Menace. It simply isn't the case that the critics know what they're talking about every time.

I was hoping they were right on this one. The story premise sounds solid:

(SPOILERS AHEAD -- BUT LITTLE YOU COULDN'T GET FROM PRESS RELEASES, AND NOTHING THAT MAKES THE SHOW LESS EXCITING)

12:00 Midnight, the night before the California primaries. The premiere opens with a government agency discovering a plot to assassinate one of the candidates, and it calls in its task force. The team leader, Jack Bauer, just discovered his teenage daughter snuck out and now has to deal with this crisis at work. He is told the target is the first black man with "a real shot at the White House", a man whose death would tear the nation apart -- AND he's told that people within the agency could be in on the plot. Oh, and a passenger jet blows up.

The cast seems top-notch, including Keifer Sutherland, a great film actor (who was in Dark City, a favorite of mine) who wouldn't work on just *any* TV show.

And the construction of the show is BRILLIANT:

Each episode occurs in real-time. The premiere episode covered 12 midnight to 1 am. Next week will cover 1:00-2:00 am, and the final (24th) episode of the season will end at midnight of the next day.

I was hoping the show would be as good as they said.

IT WAS BETTER.

The premiere will actually be rebroadcast Friday night, 9/8c, and I HIGHLY recommend you see it.